Michal declines to consider the soundness of complementing his epic Fiction Corpus with some truly brilliant halloween stories; cites fatigue
Posted:
I don't doubt the soundness of exploiting English as everybody's second language. I don't regard highly the sterile style in which the English language is presented for study.
Perfecting a person's familiarity with a language isn't like creating a faster boat. A language - a spoken tongue - isn't merely an instrument that you can learn to use with greater amounts of precision. A living tongue can not be torn from the philosophical currents of a society of which it is a description. A language isn't recited; it happens - and keeps happening as long as a circle of people keeps using it.
Teaching a pupil to recite English is to cheat her out of its cultural context. A worthy educator must find a way to introduce it; the discerning student ventures out to seek it.
A dictionary can be an influential tool. A decent dictionary will describe a language based on a particular corpus, a body of written works of varying scope and consistency. A corpus might include everything from a book about literature to some good fiction. I watched many moons pass laboring on my "immense" Fiction Corpus to form a new genre of dictionary based on the ability of one man to tell a story in many different forms. It is a labor of love and listening.
I have molded a million words and I have tabulated them, reshaping them - not simply to teach a tongue but to reveal the human spirit, and to goad that soul or spirit not just to recite but to happen.
Michal's Dictionary: Understanding the words This Planet
A word can represent many things. First and foremost it represents a type of gesture. A specific way of speaking. A specific way of inscribing a mark. A specific way of moving your hand. To know one of these kinds of gestures is to know how to pronounce the words this planet in some kind of way.
If you want to communicate an idea using the words this planet, you will need to know what other people are made to think when you make the gesture. You will never have complete awareness of or control over the associations or identities that are invoked by a set of words, but you can know what was and what is a single word's jointly accepted definition, at least for a given place, thereby tracing a direction which will help you to understand what kinds of associations and identities are driving its use.
By using the word yourself, you enter into a long-standing albeit oftentimes unconscious debate over its definition, forever entangling yourself into the history of its use. The way you use it, and which other words you use it with carries weight.
The more you know about where the words this planet are located in the fabric of a language, the better you will be at exploiting their cultural power.
Pronunciation of This Planet
I have yet to publish a pronunciation for the words "this planet."
Video of me pronouncing "this planet."
Definition of This Planet
The term this planet refers to the place where most humans are born and live out their entire lives as opposed to some people who seem to come from someplace else. See crazy and different.
Common use of this planet in illustrative example sentences
I have yet to come up with a third sentence using the words "this planet."
Audio of me saying the sentence:
I have yet to come up with a fourth sentence using the words "this planet."
Audio of me saying the sentence:
I have yet to come up with a fifth sentence using the words "this planet."
Audio of me saying the sentence:
I have yet to come up with a sixth sentence using the words "this planet."
Audio of me saying the sentence:
I have yet to come up with a seventh sentence using the words "this planet."
Audio of me saying the sentence:
Usage of This Planet in Michal's Fiction Corpus
Michal's Fiction Corpus of Acceptance Literature (FiCAL) is presented under the Bare Bottom imprint. It is currently comprised of six bodies of work, each representing a different pillar of culture and incorporating a wide variety of writhing styles.
I have yet to make a morphological analysis of the words "this planet."
That doesn't mean it's not high on my list.
Table of Frequency for the Words "This Planet."
This table lists in descending order the total number of times that the words "this planet" and any of their morphological derivations appear in the Fiction Corpus, along with a breakdown of frequency by title, the respective rank of each word or set of words in the complete list of all words in the Corpus, as calculated both densely and competitively, as well as the percent increase in frequency of the words over the frequency of the next lowest rank in the complete list.
Percent Increase over next rank
RANK
WORD
Frequency
TOTAL # of occurences
MCDONALDS
JESUS
SEX
TSIGA
JACKSON
DINGBATS
dense
competitive
modern/sloppy
biblical/terse
poetic/high-brow
hard/fast
talky
mixed salad
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
I have yet to publish the table of frequency for the words "this planet," but I will get to it shortly. -Michal
A story bible for a comic book series set in a post climate-change California narrated by eight characters who live through a natural disaster that sinks Los Angeles and triggers a war with an expansionist Mexican government covertly supported by China.
Author's Note
"This Planet" does not make an appearance in Death to Mcdonalds.
An experimental science fiction Christology that makes Jesus the hard boiled narrator of his own early years on a bizarro earth made dark by volcanic ash and informally ruled by a man from Mars who sells bottled air.
"We had no reason to believe that their revolution would threaten this planet."
"What the fuck is this?" continued the Krupnik. "You know what this is? This is the fuckin' line to the goddamn checkpoint. We're gonna be here for fuckin' two hours or more. When we cross this bridge, you can wave hello to the goddamn howitzers. What the fuck is going on? This planet: it's madness. This is worse than usual - and usually, it's pretty fuckin' bad. That Lipski's gonna have to pay for this - goddamn it: it's not his fault. It's the goddamn situation. It's fuckin' terrorists, outer-space pirates, American interests - goddamn it. It's a good thing this city has a moat - if not for that, fuckin' Lipski wouldn't know where to put his troops. I can read him like a goddamn book. Once we shoot around on this bypass, we can ram ourselves up his goddamn ass. Why do you think I left the hood red? That's a sign for the terrorists. This way, they won't shoot us. Goddamn it! Welcome to the fuckin' party, boy. I hope you like it."
"See, cousin," said Jesus, "what kind of people have come to rule this land. When you threatened SECURITA with exposure, not a single honest man came forward, despite the fact that knowledge of our existence had to reach the highest circles before our uniforms were granted. It was treason they had to hide - if not their own, then somebody else's. We're a state secret, cousin. You think we'll survive long on this planet? They want our heads. We're a liability - just like Leonard Cohen-Krupnik, the richest man in Poland - but not for long. Soon, his wealth will fall to his eldest son, Sacha. We cannot even contemplate the possible motives, but, for some reason, Hitler Panzer-Tank the Third has purchased the sudden death of his would-be son-in-law's father.
A literature book narrated by a pair of siblings on either side of the Atlantic whose profoundly weird sexual experiences pose a serious challenge to their traditional understanding of mathematicians, marriage, gay young men and God.
OLYMP: Andrea? Can I ask you a question?
ANDY: Yes, of course you can.
OLYMP: What's heaven like?
ANDY: What's heaven like? Well, I don't know: I've never been there.
A collection of stories featuring a sexy Parisian ghost, a spooky Moon base full of vagina-faced aliens, a policeman with an Irish name, a truck full of watermelons, a flautist, and a man who has to see another man about a diseased horse.
Gog stopped. He was being watched. He could see a bronze helmet peeking from among rocks in the distance. He thought, "A scout from the Paralatai. If he recognizes my metal, he will guess there is something wrong. His leaders will attack me while I am weak."
Gog climbed down a rocky promontory. The ridge was only a few feet below. He leapt onto it. The ground was rough. It was dry. Gog realized a lack of water probably prevented growth. It didn't explain the lack of rocks. Before long Gog thought he had that puzzle figured out.
Bei was vexed. She looked everywhere for her precious Jing. She asked Kwon if he had seen her. He turned away. He seemed to be fighting back tears. He murmured, "I think I know what happened. Jing was kidnapped by creatures native to this planet. They took Bo; doubtless Tae as well. One of them visited me. He talked to me through his hands."
The handmaidens filed out of the tent in silence. Fear was written on their faces. The guards asked the last one about Magog. She said the queen consort wanted time alone with the goddess. She was not to be disturbed. Nobody saw the heifer escaping through the back. In the darkness, it was hard to see. Its hide had been scorched black.
A real play. With drama in it. Talk fast. It takes two hours. Set in a guest house. In a small community. After a murder. Lots of suspicion. The characters learn to listen to each other. It's funny.
"This Planet" does not make an appearance in Sorry Miss Jackson.
A story book full of short fiction stories. An interesting bedtime mystery. A fairy tale. Science fiction romance. Adult life. Uninspiring gay fiction. Horror.
My friends kept telling me I was crazy. They said no matter how bad it is in the city at least I have friends. In the village I would have nobody. It was true. I didn't argue. I didn't want them to know what was on my mind. I was thinking what good are friends if they can't protect you. I knew it wasn't their fault.
My success is built not just on courage and understanding but the worst and most disgusting kind of fear and anger. I cannot separate the two. I keep reaching the same conclusion. That there must be some kind of good in evil. A conclusion which I immediately reject. And come back to. Again and again.
As Mark made his way down to his final stop he noticed the professor standing behind the tripod leaning into the viewfinder. He was so preoccupied with the sight of the bent-over old man he neglected to slow down and crane his head around the hedgerow. Luckily there was nobody there. The cord that connected Bill's hand brake to the actual brake had snapped. He had been dragging it for about the entire route until a customer on Download Street finally stopped him and asked, "What's that noise?" Bill decided it was time to take a break and check it out. He didn't want customers thinking postmen didn't care about their trucks. The customer saw the broken cord. He offered to bring some twine so Bill could tie the loose end to the chassis. Bill said he didn't want to be a bother. The customer insisted. Bill was forced to wait ten minutes until the customer came back and said, "Sorry it took so long. Here's the twine." Bill tied the cord to the chassis and went on his way. Never realizing the broken hand brake had probably saved his life.
I opened the school the next day. There were birds nesting in the furnace. I thought it was a good sign. I left them there for the sake of the students. I wanted us to remove them together as a way of bonding. No students came. I sat in the room by myself until the afternoon with nothing but chirping to keep me company. I asked the headman if the villagers knew I had come. He said he would take care of it.
This table lists in descending order of frequency a selection of text strings that appear in the Fiction Corpus and groups them according to the morphological derivation of the words this planet that appears in the string.
Type
WORD
Frequency
TOTAL # of occurences
MCDONALDS
JESUS
SEX
TSIGA
JACKSON
DINGBATS
modern/sloppy
biblical/terse
poetic/high-brow
hard/fast
talky
mixed salad
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
I have yet to perform a collocation analysis of "this planet." I hope I can get it done sometime soon. -Michal
St. Sebastian was a member of the Roman Emperor's praetorian guard who had the audacity to teach Christian values while on the job. I think active duty American military men and women who don't vote or who don't publicly express a political opinion because of the uniform are either being idiotic or are being cowed by the threat of punishment from a superior. Either way, they're eunuchs. My purpose in creating the St. Sebastian Series is to put the flesh and face of the true soldier front and center. The good soldier puts his mission ahead of himself. He often ends up dead. The true soldier knows a bad mission when he sees one and he isn't afraid to say it. Saint Sebastian was not a cow, despite what clever people would have you believe. Saint Sebastian is a patron saint for all protestors who face the arrows of the mob for speaking out.
Help maintain the "This Planet" page...
If you love women and art...
Michal's exporting art from Poland...is he meshugge?
Michal's Sales Pitch Lot 1: Silesian Handicrafts
T-shirt fundraiser for sale
Last T-Shirt with the logo that I designed.
From a set of, I believe, twenty produced by Margo and given out to a portion of the last 20 women to finish the 20th anniversary Fiat Road Race in Bielsko-Biała, cf. the movie. This is the last one left in it's original packaging and my supporters - like the poor women of Bielsko - are going to have to fight for it. Whoever invests the most money with me, and who lets me borrow it to invest in the next lot, will not only be rewarded with some beautiful piece of art, but will get this priceless t-shirt as a reward for being my top supporter. $1000.00 or best offer. Remember to authorize me to hold the sum as credit against a future purchase and to authorize me to borrow against it.
To purchase please mail a USPS money order in an envelope clearly marked Lot #1/Item #1 to M. Slaby at house number 201 on Ridge Road in the town of West Milford, in the state of New Jersey, one of the beautiful United States of America. The postal code is 07480-3112.
Felt handbag for sale
Felt bag by Dorota.
Entirely hand-sewn. Base: polyester felt, 100% PE. Motif: South American woolen yarn, dyed, 100% wool. Hand-worked with a needle. Unique and inimitable design. Inside: cotton fabric, closes with zipper, inside pocket. Available now for $220.00. Ships free of additional charge via USPS (uninsured) unless otherwise directed.
To purchase please mail a USPS money order in an envelope clearly marked Lot #1/Item #2 to M. Slaby at house number 201 on Ridge Road in the town of West Milford, in the state of New Jersey, one of the beautiful United States of America. The postal code is 07480-3112.
Decorative collar for sale
Decorative collar by Zuzanna.
Ethnic layered cloth jewelry constructed on a cotton base and adorned with ribbons, tassels, and a yellow fringe. Fastened on the side with 11 buttons, fitted entirely with a pleasant lining. The style is an Indo-Asian-African multinational color combination. The collar is very extravagant and an extraordinary addition to any clothing, guaranteed to attract attention. Just a simple dress and a unique image is ready. Dry-cleaning recommended. Available now for $200.00. Ships free of additional charge via USPS (uninsured) unless otherwise directed.
To purchase please mail a USPS money order in an envelope clearly marked Lot #1/Item #3 to M. Slaby at house number 201 on Ridge Road in the town of West Milford, in the state of New Jersey, one of the beautiful United States of America. The postal code is 07480-3112.
Seamless handbag for sale
Handbag by Sylwia.
Handmade from felted all-natural Australian and South American wool. Entirely felted, seamless. Finished with a white lining, inside is a small pocket. Lining is sewn and stitched in by hand. Available now for $180.00. Ships free of additional charge via USPS (uninsured) unless otherwise directed.
To purchase please mail a USPS money order in an envelope clearly marked Lot #1/Item #4 to M. Slaby at house number 201 on Ridge Road in the town of West Milford, in the state of New Jersey, one of the beautiful United States of America. The postal code is 07480-3112.
Patchwork quilt for sale
Patchwork quilt by Alicja.
Bedspread made of cotton and polyester material. Inserted with polyester lining. 90 by 70 cm. Available now for $120.00. Ships free of additional charge via USPS (uninsured) unless otherwise directed.
To purchase please mail a USPS money order in an envelope clearly marked Lot #1/Item #5 to M. Slaby at house number 201 on Ridge Road in the town of West Milford, in the state of New Jersey, one of the beautiful United States of America. The postal code is 07480-3112.
Nuno-felt shawl for sale
Shawl by Sylwia.
Scarf made with the nuno felting technique (wet felting fibre into a silk gauze) using South American wool. Two-sided scarf with latticework at the ends. Wholly in the colors red, black, green in an abstract pattern. Available now for $100.00. Ships free of additional charge via USPS (uninsured) unless otherwise directed.
To purchase please mail a USPS money order in an envelope clearly marked Lot #1/Item #6 to M. Slaby at house number 201 on Ridge Road in the town of West Milford, in the state of New Jersey, one of the beautiful United States of America. The postal code is 07480-3112.
Clara the doll for sale
Clara by Alicja.
Clara loves roses and greenery, adores tormenting spiders with long legs and sleeping soundly in the afternoon. Cuddly toy made of cotton and polyester, stuffed with polyester lining. Available now for $70.00. Ships free of additional charge via USPS (uninsured) unless otherwise directed.
To purchase please mail a USPS money order in an envelope clearly marked Lot #1/Item #7 to M. Slaby at house number 201 on Ridge Road in the town of West Milford, in the state of New Jersey, one of the beautiful United States of America. The postal code is 07480-3112.
Noah the doll for sale
Noah by Alicja.
Noah doesn't know what to like and what not to like but keeps wondering and thinking about it. Cuddly toy made of cotton and polyester, stuffed with polyester lining. Available now for $70.00. Ships free of additional charge via USPS (uninsured) unless otherwise directed.
To purchase please mail a USPS money order in an envelope clearly marked Lot #1/Item #8 to M. Slaby at house number 201 on Ridge Road in the town of West Milford, in the state of New Jersey, one of the beautiful United States of America. The postal code is 07480-3112.
Black suspenders for sale
Black suspenders by Zuzanna.
Two-sided suspenders from black material with a rose motif on one side and striped cotton on the other. Connected by a leather triangle. Adjustable length. Hand washing in cold water recommended. Available now for $50.00. Ships free of additional charge via USPS (uninsured) unless otherwise directed.
To purchase please mail a USPS money order in an envelope clearly marked Lot #1/Item #9 to M. Slaby at house number 201 on Ridge Road in the town of West Milford, in the state of New Jersey, one of the beautiful United States of America. The postal code is 07480-3112.
Orange suspenders for sale
Orange suspenders by Zuzanna.
Two-sided suspenders made of denim and orange material with a Polish floral folk design. Connected by a leather triangle. Adjustable length. Hand washing in cold water recommended. Available now for $50.00. Ships free of additional charge via USPS (uninsured) unless otherwise directed.
To purchase please mail a USPS money order in an envelope clearly marked Lot #1/Item #10 to M. Slaby at house number 201 on Ridge Road in the town of West Milford, in the state of New Jersey, one of the beautiful United States of America. The postal code is 07480-3112.
Green suspenders for sale
Green suspenders by Zuzanna.
Two-sided suspenders made of denim and green material with a mountain folk design. Connected by a leather triangle. Adjustable length. Hand washing in cold water recommended. Available now for $50.00. Ships free of additional charge via USPS (uninsured) unless otherwise directed.
To purchase please mail a USPS money order in an envelope clearly marked Lot #1/Item #11 to M. Slaby at house number 201 on Ridge Road in the town of West Milford, in the state of New Jersey, one of the beautiful United States of America. The postal code is 07480-3112.
Felt earrings for sale
Felt earrings by Dorota.
Material: South American woolen yarn, dyed, 100% wool. Hand-worked with a needle. Pendant of anti-allergenic metal. Available now for $40.00. Ships free of additional charge via USPS (uninsured) unless otherwise directed.
To purchase please mail a USPS money order in an envelope clearly marked Lot #1/Item #12 to M. Slaby at house number 201 on Ridge Road in the town of West Milford, in the state of New Jersey, one of the beautiful United States of America. The postal code is 07480-3112.
Round ceramic earrings for sale
Round ceramic earrings by Dorota.
Material: Glazed ceramics, hand-molded. Available now for $40.00. Ships free of additional charge via USPS (uninsured) unless otherwise directed.
To purchase please mail a USPS money order in an envelope clearly marked Lot #1/Item #13 to M. Slaby at house number 201 on Ridge Road in the town of West Milford, in the state of New Jersey, one of the beautiful United States of America. The postal code is 07480-3112.
Oblong ceramic earrings for sale
Oblong ceramic earrings by Dorota.
Material: Glazed ceramics, hand-molded. Available now for $40.00. Ships free of additional charge via USPS (uninsured) unless otherwise directed.
To purchase please mail a USPS money order in an envelope clearly marked Lot #1/Item #14 to M. Slaby at house number 201 on Ridge Road in the town of West Milford, in the state of New Jersey, one of the beautiful United States of America. The postal code is 07480-3112.
'Coral' necklace for sale
Corals by Sylwia.
Necklace made of cotton pieces with organdy and decorated with beads, suspended on cotton strings. Can be worn as a necklace, as a brooch or as a belt tied at the side. Available now for $40.00. Ships free of additional charge via USPS (uninsured) unless otherwise directed.
To purchase please mail a USPS money order in an envelope clearly marked Lot #1/Item #15 to M. Slaby at house number 201 on Ridge Road in the town of West Milford, in the state of New Jersey, one of the beautiful United States of America. The postal code is 07480-3112.